Charles Leclerc led Carlos Sainz during the opening practice session for Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix.
It marked a return to the venue where the championship’s 2022 cars debuted during pre-season testing in late February.
Leclerc set a time of 1:19.828s to finish a mere 0.079s up on home representative Sainz in hot and sunny conditions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
World Champion Max Verstappen was third, three-tenths behind title leader Leclerc, during a relatively sedate session.
Mercedes drivers finished fourth and sixth respectively, George Russell ahead of Lewis Hamilton, with Fernando Alonso fifth for Alpine.
Several teams began on-track assessment of their upgrade packages through the course of the 60-minute session, with many having brought revised components to the sixth round of the season.
There was also off-track intrigue with similarities drawn between Aston Martin’s heavily revised AMR22 and Red Bull’s RB18. The FIA confirmed during the session that the legality of Aston Martin’s upgrade package was checked, in line with regulations concerning reverse engineering and potential IP transfer, and subsequently approved.
There were grand prix weekend debuts at Williams and Red Bull for Nyck de Vries and Jüri Vips respectively.
Reigning Formula E champion de Vries finished in 18th position, a tenth clear of regular racer Nicholas Latifi, as he had his first experience behind the wheel of Williams’ FW44.
Vips, replacing Sergio Perez, finished at the foot of the 20-driver field but his run plan did not include a legitimate timed effort on Soft tyres.
Veteran Robert Kubica ran for Alfa Romeo, in place of Zhou Guanyu, and finished 13th overall.
Second practice for Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix is scheduled for 17:00 local time
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